National Rifle Association Vs The Second Amendment Foundation
The NRA, which lobbies for the rights of gun owners, issued a statement two days after the shooting saying: “The reports from Minnesota are troubling and must be thoroughly investigated. In the meantime, it is important for the NRA not to comment while the investigation is ongoing.” By contrast, the NRA issued a statement within hours of the 2016 shooting of Dallas police officers many saw this as a double standard. On July 9, 2017, responding to allegations of racism, NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch said the death of Castile is “absolutely awful”. On August 10, 2017, Loesch explained NRA’s reluctance to defend Castile by arguing he was not legally carrying his handgun at the time of the shooting due to his marijuana possession. She added that his “Permit should’ve been out & hands not moving”, and that the law enforcement officer should have asked Castile where his firearm was kept. Many NRA members believed that the NRA did not do enough to defend Castile’s right to own a gun.
The Second Amendment Foundation in contrast immediately issued a strong statement for an independent investigation after the shooting, with founder Alan Gottlieb stating, “Exercising our right to bear arms should not translate to a death sentence over something so trivial as a traffic stop for a broken tail light, and we are going to watch this case with a magnifying glass.”
What The Data Shows
The Posts database documents fatal police shootings that have happened since Jan. 1, 2015. The Post said its team relies primarily on news accounts, social media postings and police reports in addition to its own reporting.
This data does not include deaths of people in police custody, fatal shootings by off-duty officers or non-shooting deaths.
The Posts data shows police fatally shot 13 unarmed Black men in 2019, five more people than Kirk claimed. Also, police fatally shot an unarmed Black woman, Atatiana Jefferson, 28, on Oct. 12 in Fort Worth Texas. But the Post’s database covers only shootings. It does not include deaths caused by beating, tasering or vehicles. George Floyds died in police custody after a police officer knelt on his neck for several minutes, which would not have been included in the Posts data set.
The Post regularly updates the database as information about cases is released, so its possible it showed eight unarmed Black male deaths instead of 13 at the time Kirk posted the video. Its also possible the number will continue to rise as more information about deaths in 2019 comes to light.
Mapping Police Violence, a crowdsourced database that includes deaths by vehicle, tasering or beating in addition to shootings, estimates 25 police killings of unarmed Black men in 2019.
Fact check:Columbus, Ohio, does not have highest rate of African American deaths by police
The Claim: Us Police Killed Eight Unarmed Black Men In 2019
In response to the nationwide Black Lives Matter movement after the death of George Floyd, Charlie Kirk, the founder and president of the conservative group Turning Point USA, posted a statement on Facebook.
Kirk claimed in a during the Blackout Tuesday campaign that, according to the Washington Posts database of police shootings, police killed eight unarmed Black men in 2019. Other Facebook pages have reposted the video, adding to its viewership.
Kirk uses this figure while arguing that systemic racism does not exist within law enforcement. He did not mention in the video that Black Americans make up 13% of the population but are killed by police at more than twice the rate of white Americans, as the Post reported. He also did not mention, as explained by Naomi Zack in her book on racial profiling and police homicide that “when 4.4 million random stop and frisks were conducted in New York City, during the period from 2004 2012, even though Blacks were disproportionately singled out, the incidence of further police action was less for Blacks than for whites.”
Kirk’s claim that police killed eight unarmed Black men in 2019 is incorrect for several reasons.
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Black People More Than Three Times As Likely As White People To Be Killed During A Police Encounter
Black Americans are 3.23 times more likely than white Americans to be killed by police, according to a new study by researchers from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The researchers examined 5,494 police-related deaths in the U.S. between 2013 and 2017. Rates of deadly police encounters were higher in the West and South than in the Midwest and Northeast, according to the study. Racial disparities in killings by police varied widely across the country, with some metropolitan areas showing very high differences between treatment by race. Black Chicagoans, for example, were found to be over 650% more likely to be killed by police than white Chicagoans.
The wide variance in deaths by police shows how preventable these deaths are, study authors Jaquelyn Jahn and Gabriel Schwartz, recent graduates from the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, told UPI in a June 24 article.
Lists Of Killings By Law Enforcement Officers In The United States
Jump to navigationJump to searchdynamic listsadding missing itemsreliable sourcesJournal of Social and Development Sciences
Below are lists of people killed by law enforcement in the United States, both on duty and off duty.Although Congress instructed the Attorney General in 1994 to compile and publish annual statistics on police use of excessive force, this was never carried out, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation does not collect these data.
The Counted
The annual average number of justifiable homicides alone was previously estimated to be near 400. Updated estimates from the Bureau of Justice Statistics released in 2015 estimate the number to be around 930 per year, or 1,240 if assuming that non-reporting local agencies kill people at the same rate as reporting agencies. A 2019 study by Esposito, Lee, and Edwards states that police killings are a leading cause of death for men aged 2529 at 1.8 per 100000, trailing causes such as accidental death , suicide , and other homicides .
Around 20152016, The Guardian newspaper ran its own database, The Counted, which tracked US killings by police and other law enforcement agencies including from gunshots, tasers, car accidents and custody deaths. They counted 1,146 deaths for 2015 and 1,093 deaths for 2016. The database can be viewed by state, gender, race/ethnicity, age, classification , and whether the person killed was armed.
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Young Black Men Killed By Us Police At Highest Rate In Year Of 1134 Deaths
Final total of people killed by US police officers in 2015 shows rate of death for young black men was five times higher than white men of the same age
Young black men were nine times more likely than other Americans to be killed by police officers in 2015, according to the findings of a Guardian study that recorded a final tally of 1,134 deaths at the hands of law enforcement officers this year.
Despite making up only 2% of the total US population, African American males between the ages of 15 and 34 comprised more than 15% of all deaths logged this year by an ongoing investigation into the use of deadly force by police. Their rate of police-involved deaths was five times higher than for white men of the same age.
Paired with official government mortality data, this new finding indicates that about one in every 65 deaths of a young African American man in the US is a killing by police.
This epidemic is disproportionately affecting black people, said Brittany Packnett, an activist and member of the White House taskforce on policing. We are wasting so many promising young lives by continuing to allow this to happen.
Protests accusing law enforcement officers of being too quick to use lethal force against unarmed African Americans have spread across the country in the 16 months since dramatic unrest gripped Ferguson, Missouri, following the fatal police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown by a white officer.
Dreasjon Sean Dadon Reed
Indianapolis, Indiana
According to the Indianapolis Star, 21-year-old Dreasjon Reed was fatally shot by Indianapolis Metropolitan Police.
Police said the encounter began when officers saw Reed driving recklessly. Video surveillance cited by the Star shows that Reed later parked and ran away from the car, prompting an officer to chase after him.
Police said the officer tried to use a stun gun on Reed, but that it was ineffective. An altercation ensued and the officer shot Reed, who was pronounced dead at the scene.
Police said they recovered a loaded gun near Reed that had been fired at least once, but the family denies the claim. Part of the incident was recorded on Facebook Live from Reed’s phone. In it, more than a dozen shots were heard, as well as someone saying “I think it’s going to be a closed casket, homie.”
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In This Story: George Floyd
George Floyd was an African-American man who died on 25th May 2020 in Powderhorn, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, following police arrest. Video recording by a witness, showing Floyd repeating Please, I cant breathe, and Dont kill me, was widely circulated on social media platforms and broadcast by media. The incident led to widespread protests across the United States.
London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom.
Police In The Us Killed 164 Black People In The First 8 Months Of 2020 These Are Their Names
Data show that police have continued killing Black men and women at disproportionate rates, even after the death of George Floyd sparked international protests against racism and police brutality.
What follows is a list of the names and cases of the Black men and women killed by police from May through August 2020. For the cases from January through April, see Part I of the slideshow.
Using databases from Mapping Police Violence and The Washington Post, CBS News has compiled a list of 164 Black men and women who were killed by police from January 1 to August 31, 2020. Many of the cases remain under investigation.
This data is based on reported and verified cases, and does not necessarily account for all incidents in which a person was killed by police.
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How Many Black Men Have Been Killed This Year
Of the 765 people killed by police in 2020, 28 percent of them have been black people – despite comprising only 13 percent of the US population.
Police brutality in America has sparked an ongoing battle between communities marching with Black Lives Matter protesters and Blue Lives Matter supporters.
Global demonstrations have also taken place to protest the harsh treatment of black people by law enforcement.
Protests in places including Kenosha, Wisconsin and Portland, Oregon have resulted in civilian deaths, hundreds of arrests and continuous unrest for months at a time.
In One Year 57375 Years Of Life Were Lost To Police Violence
A new study finds that police killings exact a toll greater than accidental gun deaths.
People killed by police in 2015 and 2016 had a median age of 35, and they still had an average of about 50 years left to live when they died. Its this metricthe gap between how long someone lives and how long they were expected to livethats the focus of a new study by Anthony Bui, Matthew Coates, and Ellicott Matthay in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.
To find the true toll of police violence, the authors focused on years of life lost. They used data from The Counted, a Guardian database of people killed by police, to find the races and ages of everyone who died at the hands of police in the United States, then compared them to the average life expectancy for those groups.
Of the 1,146 and 1,092 victims of police violence in 2015 and 2016, respectively, the authors found that 52 percent were white, 26 percent were black, and 17 percent were Hispanic. Together, these individuals lost 57,375 years to police violence in 2015 and 54,754 to police violence in 2016. Young people and people of color were disproportionately affected: 52 percent of all the years of life lost belonged to nonwhite, non-Hispanic ethnic groups. Whites also tended to be killed by police at older ages than African Americans and Hispanicsthough this is partly because, in the general population, whites are older on average than the other groups.
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March 201: Stephon Clark
Stephon Clark died after being shot at least seven times in his grandmother’s backyard in Sacramento, California, by police who were investigating a nearby break-in.
Only a mobile phone was found at the scene, and Mr Clark was unarmed.
The release of a police video of the incident sparked major protests in the city.
In March 2019, the authorities announced that the two officers involved would not face criminal prosecution as the officers had feared for their lives, believing Mr Clark had a gun.
What Is Blue Lives Matter
The countermovement claims to support local law enforcement, but its supporters have been accused of racism
- Blue Lives Matter is known to be a counter to the Black Lives Matter movement
- Those who display the flag insist it is to honor the men and women in blue, as well as fallen officers
- However, opponents of the movement say it has become a symbol of racism
- The flag is said to have some racist connotations after being spotted alongside Confederate flags at the deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, reported NPR
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The Number Of People Killed By Police Dropped Slightly In 2016
This year the number of people killed by police stands at 957, down slightly from 991 in 2015, according to the Washington Post. While white men accounted for the most deaths by police, black men were three times more likely to be killed when population rates were factored in. Washington Post Reporter Kimbriell Kelly, one of the authors of the year-end report, joins Alison Stewart to discuss.
In This Story: Moscow
Moscow, on the Moskva River in western Russia, is the nations cosmopolitan capital. In its historic core is the Kremlin, a complex thats home to the president and tsarist treasures in the Armoury. Outside its walls is Red Square, Russias symbolic center. Its home to Lenins Mausoleum, the State Historical Museums comprehensive collection and St. Basils Cathedral, known for its colorful, onion-shaped domes.
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Us Police Shootings: How Many Die Each Year
On Sunday morning, three police officers were shot dead in Baton Rouge. This attack came just 10 days after five police officers were killed in Dallas. Both events were revenge attacks for the killing of young black men by police.
The bloodshed has shocked the US, leading President Barack Obama to call for calm. But how many police officers are killed in the US in a normal year? And how many people are killed by police?
Willie Lee Quarles Sr
May 21, 2020Greenwood, South Carolina
According to the Associated Press, 60-year-old Willie Lee Quarles Sr. was fatally shot by a Greenwood police officer who was responding to a domestic violence call.
When police arrived at the scene of the alleged domestic violence incident, Quarles allegedly shot the officer. The officer then shot Quarles in the chest, killing him.
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Statements Of Attorneys For Yanez And Castile Family
The reasonableness of the initial traffic stop, and the facts of what occurred in the 103 seconds of the stop were “hotly disputed” almost immediately after the shooting occurred. On July 9, Yanez’s attorney, Thomas Kelly of Minneapolis, said his client “reacted to the presence of that gun and the display of that gun” and that the shooting “had nothing to do with race. This had everything to do with the presence of a gun.”
In the video recorded shortly after the shooting, Reynolds said that the car was pulled over for a broken taillight. Yanez’s attorney Kelly stated following the shooting that his client stopped Castile in part because he resembled a suspect in an armed robbery that had taken place nearby four days earlier, and in part because of a broken taillight. A Castile family attorney, Albert Goins, questioned this account, said that if Yanez actually thought Castile was a robbery suspect, the police would have made a “felony traffic stop” rather than an ordinary traffic stop . Goins said, “Either was a robbery suspect and didn’t follow the procedures for a felony stop, or was not a robbery suspect and shot a man because he stood at his window getting his information.”
Castile’s mother Valerie Castile and her lawyer Glenda Hatchett called for the case to be referred to a special prosecutor and called for the U.S. Department of Justice to conduct a federal investigation.
Report: Black People Are Still Killed By Police At A Higher Rate Than Other Groups
After all the attention the Black Lives Matter-led racial justice movement generated after George Floyds death in 2020, new data show that the number of Black people killed by police has actually increased over the last two years.
According to data collected by The Washington Post, police shot and killed at least 1,055 people nationwide last year, the most since the newspaper began tracking fatal shootings by officers in 2015. That is more than the 1,021 shootings in 2020 and the 999 in 2019.
Black people, who account for 13 percent of the U.S. population, accounted for 27 percent of those fatally shot and killed by police in 2021, according to Mapping Police Violence, a nonprofit group that tracks police shootings. That means Black people are twice as likely as white people to be shot and killed by police officers.
Its bad and its sad, but its not shocking that were still being killed at a higher rate, said Karundi Williams, the CEO of re:power, a national organization that trains Black people to become political leaders. When we have moments of racial injustice that is thrust in the national spotlight, there is an uptick of outrage, and people take to the streets. But then the media tends to move on to other things, and that consciousness decreases. But we never really got underneath the problem.
Williams said there is also an inherent foe that prevents widespread change.
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